Theme 5: Landscape and rural land use

How can the spatial scale of farming systems be explicitly addressed? How can we deepen our understanding of dynamics, timing and drivers of change across scale? How can ecological, social and economic demands on natural resource management be integrated at the landscape level?

WS 5.1: Designing sustainable landscapes

Convenor: Derk Jan Stobbelaar

In rural areas farms are the main elements in the landscape, hence the features of the farm are very important for the quality of the regional landscape. The layout of the farm is a product of a more or less conscious design process. In sustainable landscapes ecology, economy and well-being are balanced and strengthen each other. To be able to continually work on sustainability, explicit trade offs should be made in cases that this functions are not strengthening each other. The aim of the workshop is to explore ways to make sustainable farm-landscape designs.Download the abstracts of the papers that will be presented during this workshop

WS 5.2: Landscape and tourism: New models and practices for the relation with the rural world

Convenor: Alvaro Campelo

The main objective of this workshop is to question meanings and reasons with which people look at the rural landscape. There are large differences based on the relationship of the people with the landscape, e.g. between inhabitants and tourists. For a strategy of sustainable tourism in agrarian space it is very important to conciliate these two relations with the rural space, and including this relation when designing tourist projects. The workshop welcomes both theoretical contributions as well as cases that allow to contextualise the theoretical discussion.Download the abstracts of the papers that will be presented in this workshop

WS 5.3: Systems approach in technology-oriented farming system design

Scientists have often been embarrassed when being asked questions like: Why is Conservation Agriculture (CA) so good but so few farmers practice it? Why are there so many techniques available, yet so many people still suffer from hunger and poverty? To answer these kinds of questions might not be difficult for scientists, but to solve the problems in practice remains a challenge. The objective of this workshop is to explore trans-disciplinary ‘principles’ and multi-scale, multi-dimensional approaches for designing adaptive technologies in a farming system.Download the abstracts of the papers that will be presented during this workshop

WS. 5.4: Education in landscape and territory agronomy

The aim of this session is to strengthen the Network on Education in Landscape Agronomy which was initiated at the IFSA 2008 Symposium. The interactive session will start with a reflection of the state of education on landscape and territory agronomy in university systems and curricula. Then, we will focus on the special topic of periurban agriculture in research and action projects. Download the abstracts of the papers that will be presented during this workshop